Fatherly Master / Sifu / Shi Fu / Shifu

師父 means master in Chinese (occasionally used in Korean Hanja and Japanese as well). In the context of Martial Arts, this is the master and teacher who instructs students.

The second character by itself means father. Thus, you get the "Fatherly Master" translation. There's an old Chinese saying that goes something like, "One who is your teacher for one day, is your father for life."

Language notes: I've often seen this romanized as "sifu," this is actually the Cantonese romanization. In Mandarin Chinese, it's "shifu." The pronunciation in Mandarin is actually like "sure foo" (using typical English pronunciation). There's an "R-sound" in there, which is not obvious from the romanization. Many martial arts studios incorrectly pronounce this like "she foo" (which is actually the Japanese pronunciation). In Cantonese, it sounds like "Sea foo" (almost like "sea food," minus the "d" on the end).

師父 is kind of a weird selection for a calligraphy wall scroll, this entry is more for educational purposes. But you are welcome to buy it if you feel it's appropriate for your circumstances.

Master / Skilled Worker

But there are two sifu titles floating around. This one can simply mean "skilled worker."

Historically, this term has been used for a lot of things, such as, "The tutor of a king or emperor." But now it's more commonly used to mean, master worker, or qualified worker.

Currently, within the field of skilled labor, a master (shifu) is higher than a journeyman, and is considered to be one worthy to teach others.

Note: In the 1970's and 1980's this term was used as a common form of polite address between people. You might say, "master, do you know were Tian'anmen Square is?" to just a person on the street at that time. This usage has almost passed, however, for some reason, people still often refer to taxi cab drivers as "master" in China (though I think/hope this is fading).

In Mandarin Chinese, this is pronounced like "Sure Foo," and in Cantonese like, "See Foo."

The second character is the difference between this sifu and the other. In this case, the second character by itself means tutor, instructor, or teacher.

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The following table may be helpful for those studying Chinese or Japanese...

Title

Characters

Romaji(Romanized Japanese)

Various forms of Romanized Chinese

Fatherly MasterSifuShi FuShifu

師父师父

shi fu / shifu

shī fu / shi1 fu / shi fu / shifu

shih fu / shihfu

MasterSkilled Worker

師傅师傅

shī fu / shi1 fu / shi fu / shifu

shih fu / shihfu

In some entries above you will see that characters have different versions above and below a line.In these cases, the characters above the line are Traditional Chinese, while the ones below are Simplified Chinese.

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When the calligrapher finishes creating your artwork, it is taken to my art mounting workshop in Beijing where a wall scroll is made by hand from a combination of silk, rice paper, and wood.
After we create your wall scroll, it takes at least two weeks for air mail delivery from Beijing to you.

Allow a few weeks for delivery. Rush service speeds it up by a week or two for $10!

When you select your calligraphy, you'll be taken to another page where you can choose various custom options.

The wall scroll that Sandy is holding in this picture is a "large size"single-character wall scroll.We also offer custom wall scrolls in small, medium, and an even-larger jumbo size.

Professional calligraphers are getting to be hard to find these days.Instead of drawing characters by hand, the new generation in China merely type roman letters into their computer keyboards and pick the character that they want from a list that pops up.

There is some fear that true Chinese calligraphy may become a lost art in the coming years. Many art institutes in China are now promoting calligraphy programs in hopes of keeping this unique form
of art alive.

Even with the teachings of a top-ranked calligrapher in China, my calligraphy will never be good enough to sell. I will leave that to the experts.

The same calligrapher who gave me those lessons also
attracted a crowd of thousands and a TV crew as he created characters over
6-feet high. He happens to be ranked as one of the top 100 calligraphers
in all of China. He is also one of very few that would actually attempt
such a feat.

Some people may refer to this entry as Shifu Kanji, Shifu Characters, Shifu in Mandarin Chinese, Shifu Characters, Shifu in Chinese Writing, Shifu in Japanese Writing, Shifu in Asian Writing, Shifu Ideograms, Chinese Shifu symbols, Shifu Hieroglyphics, Shifu Glyphs, Shifu in Chinese Letters, Shifu Hanzi, Shifu in Japanese Kanji, Shifu Pictograms, Shifu in the Chinese Written-Language, or Shifu in the Japanese Written-Language.

21 people have searched for Shifu in Chinese or Japanese in the past year.Shifu was last searched for by someone else on Apr 16th, 2019